


The Littlest Empress

by Kairyn



Series: A Family of Whales [2]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: AU Daud Doesn't Kill Jessamine, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark Past, Father-Daughter Relationship, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Grumpy Daud (Dishonored), Grumpy Grandpa Daud, Knife Dad Daud, Maybe - Freeform, Mute Corvo Attano, Parent Daud (Dishonored), Rat Plague | The Doom of Pandyssia, Selectively Mute Corvo, Slow To Update, Whaler Corvo Attano, Whalers as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2019-12-30 04:03:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18307811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kairyn/pseuds/Kairyn
Summary: The Rat Plague is sweeping through Dunwall and Corvo returns home after news that Jessamine is killed and Emily missing. Well, whoever did it is about to find out just what Corvo will do when someone threatens his family.Sequel to The Littlest Whaler





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> So, it's my Birthday. Yaaay!
> 
> And like a Hobbit I decided to give other people a gift. Namely this new story, which I (and I sound like a broken record here) should _not_ be starting but am anyway.
> 
> Things to be featured in this story are:  
> Grumpy Grandpa Daud!  
> Everyone's Little Princess Emily!  
> Gruff Auntie Billie!  
> Cool Uncle Quinn!  
> Good Papa Corvo!  
> Laid Back Uncle Thomas!  
> and waaaaay too many inappropriate Whaler cousins!
> 
>  
> 
> Also Mysterious Great-Grandpa Outsider who occasionally pops in when he's bored....

The Flooded District of Rudshore was a buzz with activity as the announcements filled the air. Daud stormed through the damp hallways of the Commerce building, already snapping out orders to the blue coated masters that were following. "Find out what's going on. Tynan, I want you to investigate this story about the Lord Protector. He never struck me as stupid enough to do something like this. Rinaldo, find as many of our contacts as you can and find out what they know. Quinn, take a squad and Find. Emily." Daud couldn't help but bite out the end of that order. The fact that the Princess was missing was extremely worrisome for all of them. Quinn disappeared immediately and Daud knew that every rock would be turned over to find the girl.

"What about Corvo?" Rulfio asked.

"He'll be on his way back soon. Meet him at the docks and be ready to calm him down," Daud said. Rulfio nodded. Daud cursed the fact that he couldn't summon his Assassins from so far away. He'd always thought roughly forty miles was pretty good. That range allowed Daud to call his men from almost anywhere in Dunwall. But Corvo wasn't _in_ Dunwall so he would have to make his way back by boat.

"How could we have not heard about this ahead of time?" Billie asked.

"I don't know, but I intend to find out," Daud said.

* * *

Corvo was sitting in a grimy pub in Morley sipping at whiskey that was watered down to saddening levels, but seeing how he was spying currently he didn't mind the weaker than average alcohol. Corvo was watching one of the men at the bar from under the shadow of his dark blue hood of his Master Assassin coat. Corvo sipped again at his glass as he watched his target pass along a few coins to the man he was talking to. They had been there for twenty minutes already and Corvo was glad that they'd finally gotten to the important things. Things in Dunwall were getting dire and there was talk about blockades and Corvo could _not_ be caught on the wrong side of those.

"Did ya hear?" a man at another table close by said to his companion. Corvo listened in on habit more than any real desire to know what local gossip he could pick up.

"Hear wha'?"

"Someone went an' kilt the Empress."

Corvo froze in place and his eyes slipped away from his mark to the two men talking. "Wha'? Who done tha'?"

"They says it were her Protector or somethin'. An' ain't nobody knows where her daughter is neither."

Corvo felt something in his chest seize up at the news and he abruptly got to his feet. He didn't care about his task any longer. He had to get home. He had to see if that was true or not. It would take a boat several days to get back. Corvo wasn't very religious but he prayed that in the time it took him to sail from Morley to Dunwall that nothing would get worse or things will have been proven to be a lie. It just had to.


	2. Chapter 2

"Dunwall?" the old Tyvian Captain said as his eyebrows rose toward his hairline. "Ain't no way I'm going to Dunwall. Not with a plague goin' on."

Corvo glared, but seeing how the Captain had walked off to do something else, he figured he wouldn't change the man's mind. With a huff of annoyance, he turned and left. He had gotten that answer far more often than he was happy with. No ship wanted to go anywhere near Dunwall what with what was going on. But, Corvo wasn't above forcing someone to take him home if he had to. He needed to get home and he didn't much care who he had to step over to make that happen. Outsider's Eyes, he would steal a ship if it came down to that. Corvo only had, at best, rudimentary sailing skills, but he could probably find someone to help him that had a fear of sharp knives. Most people tended to share that fear in Corvo's experience.

There was only one other ship in port that Corvo hadn't tried yet. The crew was rushing around putting all the cargo away in a practice of organized chaos. Corvo spotted the Captain looking over what seemed to be a manifest and made his way for him. He was a younger Captain and Corvo hoped that meant he wouldn't be as hesitant as the others he'd asked.

The Captain didn't even look up as Corvo came to stand in front of him, but then, Corvo was very quiet on his feet. After a moment the Captain still hadn't noticed, however, and that was annoying. Corvo reached up to hook two fingers over the edge of the board that the Captain's papers were on and forced it down. The other man startled a little and then narrowed his eyes. "What?"

Corvo's hands moved in precise signs that any Captain in Morley should be able to decipher. Morley Hand Sign was every bit as common in the ports as Morley's spoken language. There was a common childhood disease that, should the child survive the horrible fever and occasional seizures, tended to leave behind severe impediments such as muteness, blindness, deafness, and sometimes, if one was particularly unlucky, all three at the same time. It ran rampant through the lower class, especially in Morley for some reason. Hence, MHS was the most widely known nonverbal language in the Isles.

Corvo himself learned the language when he was a child and hadn't been able to make even the smallest noise after he'd been kidnapped by slavers. Eventually Corvo's trauma faded enough that, in his teens, Corvo began to speak again, but even then it was a rarity and he couldn't get much volume out of his voice. Corvo could still recall how the entirety of Daud's office, which had at the time been full of Master assassins and the entirety of a patrol, had frozen when Corvo had gotten fed up with his signs going unnoticed in the chaos and spoken for the first time in a decade. Everyone had stared at him when he'd told Quinn (who had been ranting about how Slackjaw's boys were the cause of that particular patrol going tit's up) to shut up already. Everyone's undivided attention on Corvo had immediately ripped his rough and surprisingly dropped voice away from him again. Corvo should have realized after so much time his voice would have deepened, but it hadn't occurred to him so he'd been just as shocked by the sound of his own voice.

"So... that's what you sound like," Billie had said thoughtfully. Daud, probably realizing how uncomfortable Corvo was, had quickly brought the conversation back to the brawl that had broken out on patrol rather than Corvo's voice. Even still, it took Corvo almost another full year before he managed to utter another word, which had caused an equally awkward moment of surprise.

The Morley Captain watched Corvo's hands move with a frown. "Dunwall? They're planning on barricading the city. I don't want to get caught up in that."

Corvo frowned and signed more, going a little faster with his agitation. Why did everyone have to be such cowards? Corvo had to get home!

The Captain watched Corvo's hands and hummed thoughtfully. "... how much coin are we talkin'?" he finally asked. Corvo's answer came immediately. He had snagged an entire purse during one of his recon jobs earlier in his trip and so Corvo had some extra money to burn along with what remained of the money that Daud had given Corvo for travel expenses. He had planned on using the extra coin to buy Emily a gift but now it was going straight to getting Corvo home.

"Not bad," the Captain mused. "We'll be going past anyway... tell ya what, you pay that and we'll take ya as close as we can an' let ya take one of our skiffs to get to the city. Best I can do."

Corvo nodded. The plan wasn't ideal but if that was the only way to get him to Dunwall and his family then he would do it. Money changed hands, or half of it, Corvo wasn't so foolish as to hand it all over ahead of time, and Corvo was taken down to a cabin.

Corvo hated travelling by ship. If it weren't for the fact that by boat was really the only practical means of traversing the Empire, Corvo was sure he'd have never set foot on one again. They just brought up too many terrible memories. But, Corvo was also one of the best spies that Daud had so it made sense to send him off on the more subtle jobs even if it required him sailing to another Isle. 

To keep himself occupied, Corvo stayed up top as much as possible where the chilly sea air kept his mind from drifting to stuffy cabins where every fleck of innocence had been stripped from him along with his voice. Corvo was driving himself crazy enough without flashing back to those days on top of it. Corvo should have been in Dunwall and should have declined the job from Daud. Everyone had known that the situation in the city was deteriorating and yet Corvo had foolishly thought that the Lord Protector would have been enough to protect his family. And now Jessamine was... and Emily missing... Corvo wouldn't have slept on the ship anyway, but his worry ensured he didn't even go through the motions of trying.

Instead, Corvo tried to busy himself with other thoughts. Daud would no doubt be investigating what happened and looking for Emily. Corvo was confident that his Whaler family would be able to find and take care of his daughter. The Whalers looked after their own and Emily was one of them through Corvo.

Corvo still remembered the day he had to come up to Daud and tell the man that the relationship Daud had been continually warning against between Corvo and the young Empress had gotten infinitely more complicated. Daud had taken the news that Corvo had gotten Jessamine pregnant surprisingly well, actually, and only gave a short lecture (i.e. only two hours opposed to four or five) about how he had _told_ Corvo to be careful. But when Emily had been born Daud was one of the most protective of them all, keeping a guard posted over the nursery where the Princess was for years. Corvo wished that he hadn't managed to convince Daud to remove the Whalers from their posts around the Tower after Emily had grown past the toddler stage. But Corvo had trusted, foolishly, that Jessamine's forces would protect his family.

Corvo had always rather liked the Lord Protector. The slightly older man had no doubt known that Corvo hung around and slipped into the Tower regularly but he allowed it. Corvo wasn't at all sure why but he didn't think it was because the Lord Protector was negligent. Especially since Daud had warned Corvo not to get caught by the Lord Protector millions of times. Daud wouldn't have done that if there was no threat.

The idea that the Lord Protector had killed Jessamine didn't seem right to Corvo. He had been in the military for all his life and had always seemed loyal to a fault. Plus, the Lord Protector had his own secrets that meant he definitely wouldn't want anyone digging into his personal life. Corvo did wonder what had happened to the Lord Protector. He would most likely know, or at least be able to guess, who was behind Jessamine's murder and Emily's disappearance.

Corvo leaned against the side of the ship and watched the waves get sliced through by the bow. Corvo should have known he couldn't trust the regular palace guards, however. He had slipped past them often enough to visit first Jessamine and then Emily after she'd been born. Corvo hadn't even come close to being caught any of those times. The 'closest' had been when Corvo, exhausted from a mission the night before and then making love to Jessamine, had slept several hours past dawn for once and almost got spotted by some of the maids. Clearly, the maids were the ones Corvo should have put his faith in.

The coast of Morley was shrinking in size rapidly but Corvo was barely aware of it. He couldn't help but worry about Emily and think about how someone had hurt Jessamine. Someone Corvo didn't know and couldn't, at the moment, track down. He hoped that the Whalers had some leads when he arrived back in Dunwall because someone had to pay for this. Corvo would make sure of it.

In Dunwall, Quinn was crouched on top of a roof that overlooked Clavering Boulevard. The guards were patrolling in greater numbers than before and were being a lot more thorough with their searches. Quinn could only guess that they too were looking for Emily. But the guards had a distinct disadvantage over the Whalers seeing how they were only human.

The air beside Quinn displaced and Pavel was suddenly there crouched just as low with one hand bracing him against the tiles of the roof. "Nothing along the river that we've found. But at least we haven't found any evidence of her being hurt either."

"Hush up," Quinn said a little harshly. "They wouldn't dare hurt Emily."

Pavel held a hand up defensively. "Well, they hurt Jessamine so who knows what they're capable of?"

Quinn scowled behind his mask but didn't say anything else. If something happened to the squirt then Quinn would... well, he wasn't entirely sure what he'd do but it wouldn't be good. And that wasn't even taking into account Daud or Corvo.

"Maybe we're going about this the wrong way," Rapha said where he was standing leaning against a nearby chimney.

"How do you mean?" Pavel asked, looking over his shoulder.

"Well, it's not easy to slip in, kidnap the Outsider Blessed Princess of the Isles, and then slip out of the Tower again," Rapha said. "We know that. How many times have we nearly gotten one of our numbers caught sneaking her out to play hide and seek? So... who is even _able_ to do something like this? It would have to be someone comparable to us."

A long moment of silence followed that statement. "Ugh, that doesn't bode very good. I wish you hadn't thought of it," Pavel said.

"I think up a lot of things I wish I hadn't," Rapha muttered.

"I'm sure Daud's already thought that up himself," Quinn said. "Any sign of Billie?" Billie was supposed to be meeting up with them before going back to the Flooded District.

"Not yet," Rapha said. "But it's still a little early. She's got ten minutes still."

Quinn nodded and let his eyes scan the streets again for any sign of the girl he saw as his niece. He could still recall the first time Quinn had laid eyes on the little girl. She had only been a month and a half old and Corvo had been over the moon with her. Quinn honestly hadn't understood it until he'd seen little Emily himself. He'd only been there to pass a message from Daud to Corvo. Corvo, needing his hands to talk, had carefully and with a dark warning glare had put the baby in Quinn's arms so he could respond. Quinn had been caught off guard and felt like he couldn't move in case the tiny little girl shattered in his arms or something. Emily had looked up at him with the sweetest, big brown eyes ever and Quinn had felt something in him just... melt. 

Quinn hadn't been around babies much before and so hadn't had any defense against Emily's natural adorable trusting gaze. Quinn still wasn't the biggest fan of babies -they made so much noise and felt so breakable- but he hadn't minded taking over any shifts in watching the young Princess. And when Emily started getting older and more energetic, Quinn had been among the first to succumb to her wishes and whisk her out of her room to go play on rooftops and other places her parents would probably have heart attacks to know about.

The idea of something happening to her was just... well Quinn didn't think he could fathom it. Already Corvo was going to be so destroyed over Jessamine, they couldn't take little Emily away too. Quinn wouldn't allow it.

Billie stepped into existence a couple minutes later through a cloud of darkness and ash. "Anything?" Pavel asked.

"No. I got a copy of the Watch Patrols that they've already done to show Daud but we might want to go over those areas again," Billie said as she folded her arms over her chest. "You know how much the Watch can miss even on a good day."

Rapha muttered an agreement and pushed off of the wall he was leaning on. "Well, we should head back and report to Daud. Though I don't really want to. I don't think I've ever seen his temper this short before."

"I have," Quinn said. "When I first joined. But... that had to do with kids too so, you know."

"He's got a soft spot for them," Billie said in a form of agreement. They were all silent for a moment. "Well, we're not helping anything staying here. Let's go." Without another word all four Whalers were obscured in a cloud of cold shadowy fragments. When the roof went back to normal, there was no sign that they had ever been standing there in the first place.


End file.
